Rise of the Blood Sovereign

70  Monsters of the Mountain

"Alright everybody, listen up!" The leader of the caravan, alongside one of the three Silver Knights, came to the temporary camp the men had created. He put a small platform in front of him and stood on it, making sure that everybody can see him.

"We will be resuming our trip in a little bit, I presume that most of you already know what kind of foes we might come across on the mountain, but just in case, I will be telling you so you can be ready and fully aware of the dangers."

"The first, and the most common enemies caravans face are the Red-Skinned Monkeys!" The caravan leader said as he took out a large piece of paper that had a painting of a larger-than-average monkey with red skin and barely any fur.

"The limbs of these bastards are not only long but extremely flexible and strong, a normal human being would find themselves being ripped in half by their incredible strength."

"Do not forget about their movements, either, as they can jump from tree to tree and switch position incredibly quickly before attacking you, many times they will simply try to use their long limbs to grab you and drag you inside the forest, if that happens, then you will almost certainly die since you will get attacked by many more inside."

"We will try to save those that get caught, but even the Bronze Knights can't be certain that they will be there on time to save you." The leader said with a serious expression, making sure everyone knew just how serious the situation is.

"Second are the hawks." The leader said as he brought out another paper with the painting of a black and yellow hawk.

"The Thunder Hawks are powerful monsters that wield the power of lightning, although the lightning is more used to boost their speed and simply shock the opponent, that alone is enough to make them fierce enemies that can simply grab one of you before you notice and then bring you high up, before letting you go and smashing your brains on the ground."

"If you get caught, you have 1 second to free yourself or for anyone else to free you from its grasp, otherwise, it will be too late."

"The hawks are usually active in the middle of the mountain, which means that we probably won't face any in the next 10 – 13 hours, but I still want you guys to be observant of the sky."

"Third are the Silver Apes." The leader showed a painting of large apes with silver fur. Their bodies looked massive even in the painting and the muscles they had seemed to be powerful enough to rip apart anyone that would come close to them.

"These apes are normally Bronze Core monsters and if they appear, the Bronze Knights will deal with them. There are some that might be below the Bronze Core realm, the long-range combatants can focus on them while the Bronze Knights deal with the others."

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"There are also instances where the Apes were led by a Silver Core alpha, you will know if he appears since he is bigger than the others, and has reddish lines on his body."

"And now, the fourth and most powerful enemy that might show up is one that I want all of you to run away from if it appears and let the Silver Knights deal with it." The leader said before taking out a painting of a tiger.

"The Shadowless Tiger."

"This monster is a Silver Core monster and is usually active at night."

"It moves alone and attacks its prey from the shadows, rarely ever showing itself to others."

"We have installed arrays that will light up our surroundings during the night, and arrays that can almost negate the ability of the tiger that allows it to blend in with shadows."

"The tiger is very rarely seen since it is the apex predator of the forest and is usually deep inside of it, rarely coming to the mountain."

"But there had been times when it attacked a caravan, so we need to be careful and not let it have a chance to attack us." The leader said before uttering a sigh.

"Of course, there are more monsters that the forest has and that might attack us, but those will simply charge right in and attack, so we don't need to fear them that much."

"Rest up, have a nice meal, and then we make our way up the mountain." The leader stepped down from the platform and left the area while the adventurers and mercenaries talked with each other, some were worried that powerful monsters might appear, while others were simply eating in peace as they knew the danger of the trip beforehand.

Lyle and Adam were one of those that simply sat down and ate. They had very little contact with the other members of the caravan and mostly kept to themselves, as did most of the adventurer groups and mercenary groups.

They would be together for a total of three days, getting to know each other and becoming friends was not something they wanted to do.

The enemies they would face were not weaklings, especially not now when the system has arrived and monsters were becoming more powerful rather quickly.

Lyle only hoped that no monster inside the forest had reached the Golden Core realm, otherwise the caravan would be wiped out.

'Hmmm, but something bothers me, the middle carriage, there are people there, I can sense it.' Lyle suddenly thought to himself.

'It shouldn't be possible since the arrays have been put against it, but when we stopped, I am certain I sensed 2 people inside the carriage.'

'I couldn't sense their power, but it doesn't matter, after all, this was supposed to be a caravan that delivers monster cores to Orsvald, why is it transporting people inside one of their biggest carriages as well?' Lyle thought before shaking his head.

He wasn't about to snoop around to find out. He had more important things to deal with as the caravan would be starting to move again soon.

Since he and Adam were on the top of a carriage, they were the ones that had a higher chance of being attacked and snatched by one of the monkeys or a hawk.

The monkeys and hawks were below the Bronze Knight realm, which means that they would have little trouble defending themselves against them, but if Lyle didn't want to show his full strength to the caravan.

He would be suspected as to why he hid his true realm, as would Adam. Some would simply think they were cowards that didn't want to help out against Bronze Core enemies, while others would think differently.

That would not sit well with most of the caravan, and not only would the two get ostracized from the rest of the caravan, but there would definitely be rumors that people would spread around after they reached Orsvald.

Even though the rumors would probably die down relatively quickly since Lyle and Adam had disguised their appearance before they joined the caravan, it would still make it a bit harder for them to move around the first couple of days.

The caravan soon moved and started making their way up the mountain. The road up wasn't steep and it would take them a couple of hours before getting up and starting to move around the mountain.

During that time, the whole caravan was on high alert. The forest they were passing through was full of monsters and nobody knew when one would attack them. It wasn't just about getting attacked, but it was just like the caravan leader had said, if one was to get grabbed and dragged inside the forest, then they would be surrounded by tens if not hundreds of monsters that would try their very best to rip them apart.

Lyle held his throwing daggers with his fingertips and leaned back against the railing. Since there were four of them in the carriage he was in, each one was observing a different direction and they made sure that no blind spots were left open for monsters.

Lyle could hear the footsteps of the monsters inside the forest. As a vampire lord, he had much better hearing than others in his realm and could also sense any blood that was near them.

He could already sense blood from the forest around them. It was, however, hard for him to determine whether the blood he was sensing was fresh or not as there would always be fights inside the forest and the monsters would slaughter one another.

Most of the movement he heard came from lower-leveled monsters that didn't dare to attack the caravan thanks to how strong the members of the caravan were. The lowest requirement for entering the caravan was being a high-leveled fighter below the Bronze Knight realm.

That meant that even the weakest amongst them were about level 40, more than enough to deal with most monsters.